just a little respect

I was just reading the blog of a gal who came out of a Quiverfull family and was struck by something she said on the subject of respect. She wrote about the transcript of a television program that documented the lives of 'surrendered wives'. In once scene, a young daughter was told that the reason the house was cleaned and delicious meals prepared - indeed, the reason for anything and everything they did - was to honour the father, to be a blessing to him. Not because of anything he'd done, not because of the wonderful man he was, but purely because of his position as 'king of the house'.

I remember carrying on this charade with my own children. I would go to lengths to work with the kids to prepare nice things to please their Daddy, to do things that he would like. And he was not a nice daddy. I'd make excuses for the fact that he picked and shouted constantly at the kids and was generally miserable, immature, demanding and unreasonable. I'd tell the kids they needed to respect their father and would not allow them to canvass his bad behaviour. I taught them to deny and excuse their father's faults, not as a kind sort of bearing with another human's imperfections, but as a deluded attempt to build him into some sort of worthwhile man just by pretending that he was already there. I realise how insane that sounds now, but it's a much more common strategy than a right-thinking person outside of partriarchal fundamentalism might imagine.

My ex-husband was and, frankly, still is not a particularly worthwhile human being. He is unintelligent, weak, petty, self-centred, dishonest, underhanded, manipulative and mean. I lied to myself about this for years, in part because I was embarrassed to have chosen such a loser to be my partner for life. But eventually, the harm that he was doing to me and my children overwhelmed even my powerful capacity for self-delusion; the cupboard door squeaked open and we all ran out together.

I heard sermons on submission of wives and respect for husbands many, many times. I would leave with renewed hope in my heart that a good, submissive woman could make a half decent marriage even with a man like the one I was lumbered with...but I couldn't sustain my cheer for long.

A few times over the years my then-husband and I made it to a counsellor. I remember one Christian minister - a woman - explaining that respect was positional.  Police officers, she reminded, wear a badge which is the symbol of the State's authority apportioned to them, and so we obey them, regardless of what kind of men they may be in their personal lives. It doesn't matter if I am a better person, or smarter, or know more than the police officer, they are in a position of authority and subsequently my role is to obey without question.

While I agree that we need to respect laws and the authority of the keepers of the same, the analogy falls down in one important regard: Public servants who wield power over citizens also function within systems that are designed to hold them accountable for their actions. Our judicial system has flaws and often fails but theoretically, an officer who abused his power or used it to serve himself instead of the public good would be publicly disciplined and stripped of those powers so he could not abuse them again.

But accountability is completely absent from the fundamentalist submission-cult equation. The men, and in particular married ones, are ordained by God to wield unbridled power, unchecked and unobserved by those outside the family. Indeed, the better he appears to have his wife and children under his thumb, the more kudos he will earn in the church setting. Bullying and domination are valued as expressions of manly, biblical strength. His character is never called into question. Although *plenty* of sermons are preached on the inherent sinfulness of man, no one thinks to ask whether any particular sinner is effectively overcoming his nature and so behaving properly in the relationships most prone to abuse. The husband and father is not trained or equipped to rule, and yet he is given free reign without the need to account to any superior. Even when his subordinates go public with a complaint, the blame is laid at *their* feet. If they were any good at submitting, things wouldn't be in such a mess. I mean, how can a man be expected to lead if the rabble God gave him won't follow?

On our domestic front, the any-failure-is-your-failure belief system meant that I was obliged to respect my husband - not just act right but genuinely generate an attitude of respect - or I'd be sinning and in danger of judgement. I needed to respect him - and obey him - because of the position that God had put him in, that is, in authority over me. I was to do this whether or not he treated me and the kids appropriately, whether he was right about an issue, and whether he was capable of having a single, intelligent idea and carrying it out. The less I questioned, the more I swallowed, the closer to a Biblical ideal I would become. I'd be a Proverbs 31 woman such as our brand of Christianity understood her to be.

As I've mentioned, my ex- is not an easy man to respect. Indeed, once I started to really think about it, I could think of only one thing he did that deserved honour and that was working hard to earn a living. And, don't get me wrong, I don't undervalue the fact that we were well provided for. It's just that it's not enough. You also have to be some kind of decent human being if you want the people you are providing for to genuinely love and respect you.

Towards the end, when I dared to whisper the truth as I was just beginning to see it, I received more of the same kind of bad advice. For 20 years, I never criticised my husband openly. Finally, realising truth might be the one thing that could save my kids mental health as well as my own, I confided in an older Christian woman, respected as a counsellor in the church, telling her what an average evening in our home looked like: how my ex-husband would behave and what a misery he'd make of every moment he was with us. I explained that I wanted to please God but was at a loss as to know how to do that in my situation. I asked her to tell me how our evenings should look if I was getting it right. How should I walk it? Exactly what should I *do*? She told me that, whatever happened, I must not point out that my ex- was was shouting at the kids when it was *he* who had the behaviour problem, but that I must respect him and insist the children to do the same.

That counsellor was so disturbed by some of the things I was telling her about my then-husband that at one point she said, "Whoa! Slow down! It sounds like you are suggesting that marrying your husband was (gulp) *a mistake*." I replied that, in fact, I was not any longer afraid to go even to *that* deep, dark place. She wrung her hands, speechless at my heresy and pale with worry.

I was too polite to that woman. Was marrying that man a mistake? Well, pardon my crudeness but, um, doh! That imposter, pretending to be wise woman and qualified to impart biblical truth, was just another cog in the machine that works to keep that truth at bay and women and children under the miserable control of wicked men.

Even our pastor at the time, a man who I still love and respect more than any Christian leader I ever knew (although, let's face that's not saying much), participated in perpetuating our misery. Right at the end of my marriage, my ex- called the pastor in to straighten out our troubled teenage son. I listened to my ex- lambast our lad for 10 minutes. Then, asking JC to leave the room for a minute, with fear and trembling, I stated that the problem was not with our boy at all but with his father who was a person such as I have described above.

My ex- frankly admitted that there was no untruth in any of my statements, that he was indeed the person that I had described, but that he found it so difficult to lead as he lacked confidence and I was so tricky to manage. The pastor rightly noted that he hadn't really expected to be opening such a messy can of worms that night. Suddenly, his cute little marriage relationship survey form didn't seem so helpful. He left us promising to pray and consider what was to be done next. What was done next - indeed, all that was done - was that the following Sunday, he handed me a yellow envelope containing two articles warning of the destructive nature of wifely bitterness and husband-directed anger. That was the extent of his support. And boy, was I pissed.

I realise that that pastor was probably just well out of his depth as others had been before him. And my marriage and the lies I told myself, my kids and the world about it were not that pastor's doing - our mess was not his fault. But, he remains culpable for failing to shed any real light on our situation when the privileged opportunity to do so arose. Had I taken his advice, we'd still be there, playing a soul-destroying submission game with that horrible, horrible man.

To be fair I need to add that shortly after that encounter with the pastor I had coffee with another, younger woman leader in our church who listened to my very brief explanation of our domestic situation and bluntly said, 'Doesn't sound fixable. You should consider getting out.' I wasn't even able to think in terms of a possible divorce at that point - her words genuinely shocked me. But that extreme good sense, and from a Christian too, eventually seeped into my brain and was one of the factors that empowered me, finally, to act. I feel grateful to her still. I hope she can cope with the knowledge that she was influential in my ending my marriage and leading my children to freedom and a much, much happier life.

***

A lovely friend of mine, who grew up in the daughter of a fundamentalist minister - a very, very sick man and a violent sexual abuser - surprised me some years ago by announcing that she didn't care who she offended, her children were not to call anyone 'Mr' or 'Mrs', or, heaven forbid, 'Pastor'. She said that she wasn't going to assist anyone in gaining her children's respect and that if they wanted it, they could damn well earn it.

Her motivation was to abuse-proof her children. She was determined that no one would ever be able to trick her children into participating in their own abuse by waving some certificate of authority under their noses and demanding respect on that account.

I just wonder how many children could have been spared the horrors of abuse at the hand of the wicked men - and sometimes women - in their lives if we all taught our kids to practice similar small but sensible acts of psychological self-protection.

what she feared most came upon her

GUEST POST by L


“What you have feared over all those years has come upon you (divorce). You can wallow in it and become a sour and bitter old woman or you can do something about it.” …T


…imagine being 17 with a heart full of hope for the future; a heart that longs for love, a life-long love, embodying security, happiness and a bunch of kids; a happy, satisfying future with a man who would be your best friend, your soul-mate, your most loyal supporter; someone you felt completely safe and at-ease with; someone with whom to share your heart...Lay beside that hope a fearful heart; one scarred by the divorce of parents at the age of 12; one that lacked confidence; one that was certain in her deepest being that no man would ever love her enough to stay the distance in that hoped-for dream.

 This describes me as a just-17-year-old. I was a rather rebellious teen, dabbling in smoking, binge-drinking, some drug use and sneaking out at night. My mum sent me to live with my dad when she had had enough. This meant moving from a small country town where I knew almost everyone and had been at school with many of my friends since pre-school, to a city where I knew only my dad and his new wife and her young kids.
Looking back my dad did a good job, helping me get my first job, in a bank, and offering any support I needed. His wife actually tried hard too, although I’m pretty sure she would rather I wasn’t there.


After a few months I chucked my job and went on the dole, found the ‘pay’ too low, so found another one selling door-to-door. Enter my supervisor, T. He was attractive, confident and rather exotic to my small-town experience with a foreign accent and foreign ways. He asked me out on my first day and I moved in with him a week later, much to my dad’s disappointment and my step-mother’s rage.


We moved to another city and our first few months seemed ideal. I was well on my path to future happiness. A little brusqueness now and then didn’t dampen my zeal; I just determined to be the nicest I could be. The brusqueness eventually exploded into a 2 hour angry rant about my untidiness, etc. I objected, hating conflict, which led to more arguments and the conclusion that we needed help if this relationship was going to work.
T’s mother had just visited from overseas and she was a ‘born-again’ Christian and, even though they didn’t speak English in their conversations I could tell she was a huge influence on his thinking. We decided to ‘try’ church and, after seeing a newspaper article about a local surfing minister we visited that church and were in hook, line and sinker.


Our church/faith journey was probably typical of the times. We started in a fairly liberal church, got swept up in the charismatic movement, went to Bible College and moved on to a Pentecostal church. Next came Mary Pride and the search for a church/denomination that ‘actually practiced what the Bible taught’, like head-coverings and women not speaking in church. This led us, of course to the Plain churches, and we females were promptly uglified and our heads covered. This journey was over a period of about 13 years. Along with this, of course came wifely submission and, as I had come to the conclusion that being a better wife and trying harder in everything I did would hold T’s anger at bay, an attitude of submission to the head of the home seemed an essential component of my survival.


By this stage we had 6 children. T’s role seemed to be to make sure everyone did what he wanted, how he wanted and when he wanted (with the right attitude of course), and to make sure he was disturbed as little as possible. So I tried harder. I was home-schooling, home-baking, home-haircutting, producing home-made clothes and penny-pinching to the nth degree. T was working a few hours a week and read books the rest of the time.


Having children didn’t disturb T’s lifestyle unduly. He didn’t play with them, fix their bikes or do anything much of what they wanted, but he did enjoy displaying well-behaved and hospitable children to guests. He very rarely attended to a baby at night and on the few occasions he did the baby and I regretted it. He was very impatient and expected babies to sleep at night. Any sports and family outings were things of his choosing. If things didn’t go his way he would sulk, chuck tantrums, boycott situations or humiliate people. I was always the mediator and the one who smoothed things over.


He was a master of manipulation, such that I always thought any trouble was caused by me and my incompetence. Behind closed doors he criticized most things I did, saying I he could do it better. In front of others he praised me as the perfect wife. The problem was that he was nice often enough for me to convince myself that the good times were frequent and the bad minimal, when actually it was the other way around. I clung to the hope that things would get better and made excuses for him to the children. We all walked on eggshells and I tried even harder.


I was so entrenched in the idea that marriage was for life; that I needed to be faithful. It never crossed my mind that there was an alternative to the way I was living. It was my job to make this work. The problem was that I was enabling his abuse by co-operating with it. His bad behavior always had the desired effect and I would usually apologise for whatever had set him off. I thought I was being obedient to God and that all the suffering would cause inner growth. I am sure it was God that gave me the inner strength to endure his behavior without going crazy.


His specialty was still the long, angry lectures, so much so that I feared getting in the car with him because then there was no way to escape. He would keep me up at night until the ‘problem’ was solved to his satisfaction even if I was sick or had been up to babies or toddlers a few times. Now he had begun to extend his tantrum chucking to ‘leaving’ me. He would pack his bags, sit the children down and tell them that he and I didn’t get on so he was going to live somewhere else. He was aware of my fear of being abandoned, of being a single parent just like my mother. He would leave for a few hours and then come back. This, of course was very painful and confusing for the children.


It was also the beginning of T’s downfall. When I turned 40 something began to stir inside of me. I couldn’t have named it then, but I know that is when it started. An embryonic self-assurance was conceived. Funnily enough it was T himself that watered it. He had become very interested in self-improvement books and loved to ‘share’ his latest read. Also he had come to rely on me heavily for all sorts of practical things (managing a house of 10 home-schooled kids and helping to run a business). I slowly became aware of my competence.


He started a university course, mainly so he didn’t have to work and because of his difficulties with written English I would edit his assignments and discuss them with him. He would go away at times for a week long course and I realized I liked it when he wasn’t there. We all relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. This made me feel a bit guilty and I tried to squash the thought but it welled up, seemingly of its own accord.


For some obscure reason T suggested I do a uni course, too. I was suspicious that he thought it would make him look good – a wife with all the above-mentioned skills AND working on a uni degree. It goes without saying that he strongly influenced the course I chose. He had no idea where this would lead to eventually. I jumped at the chance with excitement and was amazed that I could do it, and get good marks. Being flung into the world of uni students was an eye-opener after being closeted away for 15 years, but I enjoyed their company and was fascinated by their outlandish topics of conversation.


As my confidence in myself grew so did the murmurings of the older kids at home. Dad was difficult, unfair, unkind, mean to little kids, he expected everyone to always agree with his point of view. I found I now had to start to face up to this and agree that it was true. We started to use the word ‘abusive’ out of his hearing, which was a very scary thing to verbalise. We knew what effect it would have on him if he even heard a whisper of it. I carefully approached him about some of our complaints. He didn’t like it, of course and I think he began to see he was losing his grip on us. He said he would be nicer; his behavior got worse.


Things went on like this for about 2 years. I got braver and he got more cunning and more determined in his manipulation. My staunch friend, Dragonfly, was an amazing support through all this. Kind and strong and always sensible, I know I would have crumbled without her support. T ‘left’ me a couple more times not realizing that his threat was a bit like a child threatening to tidy his room if his mum didn’t let him have his way. “Yes!” I would say on the inside, “And don’t come back!”


The next step was like a miracle unfolding before my eyes. The day of our long-planned family holiday arrived. He chucked a tantrum on the first morning and it was the final straw for me. He threatened to leave and go home and I made no effort to talk him out of it. I was sorely tempted, but something inside me said, “No, enough.” The kids and I relaxed and stayed out the week without him, happy campers at last. I lay awake at night planning my next move, but not sure if I could pull it off.


When we got home I told him I was too tired to talk (totally out of character as I would give in to what he wanted ALWAYS) and went to bed. The next morning I told him my plans. He spent the whole day stomping around the house, packing his things and every now and then trying to talk me into changing my mind. It was like a switch had flipped inside me and I refused to be drawn in. I spent most of the day ignoring him.


By the evening he had been drinking and getting angrier and angrier. He phoned the adult children and said ‘goodbye’, then set about staging a suicide attempt. Two of the adult kids called the police who took him away for the night. It was the chance I needed, so the next day I refused to let him come back.


We are now living out my plan. The kids and I packed the house up, had a huge garage sale, found a house and moved 6 hours drive away from him. The kids are in school, I am doing a teaching degree at uni and we are learning to be normal. He has tried many times to talk me into reconciliation both nicely and nastily, but I take the advice of one of my girls, “Don’t go and talk to him, Mum. He always changes your mind.”


When difficult things happen I am tempted to fall apart, and I usually have a cry. But these tears have gone from 4 hour, heart wrenching sobs down to half our weeps. There is a surge of positive energy, like a fountain, inside of me that urges me on and reminds me to keep on going. Give it a name if you like. It could be the Girl Cell, it could be Jesus-in-me, it could be just my own inner strength, but one thing I am certain of…


…what I feared most has come upon me….and I embrace it with joy and excitement!

are patriarchal fundamentalist churches aspie magnets?

Although my ex-husband has a diagnosis that states otherwise, it is my view that he is probably 'on the spectrum', that is, he has a relatively mild form of Autism called Asperger's Syndrome.

Some of the give-away clues that fuel my conviction are

• his complete lack of normal human empathy - he seems untouched by the suffering of others
• his obsession with his 'special interest' which happens, somewhat fortunately for us, to be work
• his many peculiar habits and rituals
• his increasingly odd gait and facial expression
• his incapacity to read non-verbal language such as facial expressions, body language or tone of voice
• his 'mind blindness' - he cannot imagine that there is anything happening in anyone's head that isn't happening in his own
• his permanent state of high anxiety
• his emotional immaturity and volatility

Being married for 20 years to a man who cannot give or receive love in a normal way was like having my soul scraped out with a rusty spoon. In addition to his coldness he was, as my father had warned me, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Those years of marriage felt like drowning in a vat of treacle while someone slipped a plastic bag over my head and tied it tight. I was being destroyed.

After the kids and I fled, Mr X sent me an email demanding my immediate return. He made what he though was a strong argument by reminding me:

• that I had signed a binding contract before God to stay married to him forever
• that it would be difficult for the children at Christmastime having their parents living apart
• that if I thought I was busy now, just imagine how busy I'd be without him
• that I'd need to get a job

Despite those tempting inducements, I decided to proceed to divorce as have many women married to Aspie men before me. We even have a name: we are Cassandras, named for Cassandra Syndrome which is shrink-speak for what becomes of highly empathetic women (called 'extreme neuro-typicals') when their most intimate relationship is with a brick wall.

I first heard of AS when a Christian woman I hardly knew for some reason told me all about her man. I listened in silence for over an hour before admitting that her husband could be my husband's twin brother. Since that time I have met at least 10 Christian women who have what are very likely Aspie husbands. I encountered several other Christian wives at the Asperger Partner Support Group I visited once or twice.

Suspecting that AS men seem to be significantly over-represented in Christian circles, I asked an international expert at an AS conference if she thought it likely to be so. She replied that that was definitely her view. And it's not surprising. In churches, particularly in fundamentalist ones, AS men find a veritable smorgasbord of women who tick all their boxes. Women who:

• believe in staying with their man no matter what kind of a jerk he turns out to be
• believe in rules such as laid out in the Book, including ones about submitting and obeying...no matter what kind of jerk their man turns out to be
• believe in having children and staying home to look after them
• believe that their body is not their own and will make themselves available for sex on demand
• will allow themselves to be dragged off to the pastor for counselling in submission if they get out of line

Aspies are looking for women who are kindly nurturers, like their mothers, with strong social skills who will care for them and help them manage life in a big scary world full of people they struggle to understand. Churches are full of these gentle, unsuspecting souls and Aspies are expert at tracking them down. An Aspie will go to tremendous lengths to appear normal during the courtship process only to revert to type without ceremony after his target signs the contract.

Christianity may not be responsible for the miserable marriages that ensue but fundamentalist dogma allows an Aspie man to be emotionally uninvolved with his family ('he's a great provider, don't be so ungrateful') so long as he fulfills his duties as leader of family devotions. The fact that there is not the faintest sniff of Christ about the man and each Bible time begins with 'Sit down, shut up and get out your Bibles. You are such disobedient, disrespectful children,' might be a problem if it were generally known but of course it will not be. To complain about your husband is verboten.

Patriarchal fundamentalism also tends always to blame the woman for everything. If he's a useless, she's expecting too much and should lower her standards. If she complains that he never does anything he promises to and is mean to the kids she should go home, shut up and submit more. The 'a good woman can make a great marriage out of a bad one - even if her man does not make one smidge of effort' line damages the hearts of many more women than I'd like to guess at. I was sent away with identical advice each of the 5 or so times I managed to drag my ex to counselling or went alone myself. I'm still mad.

So, yes, I believe patriarchal fundamentalist churches do attract Aspies. And they fail to support and protect AS men's families by letting him get away with being a shit while demanding his wife and children extend his shit-making privileges. Those churches have to accept some responsibility for that.

One of the first steps toward freedom for me was when I told my ex- that from that day on, I would never lie, cover up or excuse his poor behaviour again. If he behaved like a jerk, say, at the table, we were all going to be frank about that. He could own his own immaturity. It was a teensy step in the direction of Integrity for me. And a vital leap forward for my poor children's sanity.

I should add that I'm not down on AS people and am not usually in the habit of throwing people away because they don't suit me. But there are some people, AS and otherwise, who are just not cut out to be husbands or fathers. My former husband is one of those people. And the church supported those characteristics of his that harmed me and my kids. So I'm just saying.

the girl cell

This TED Talk, pilfered with thanks from No Longer Qivering, is a must see. In it Eve Ensler, anti-violence activist and author of The Vagina Monologues, discusses what she calls the 'girl cell' - that compassionate, emotional, vulnerable inner entity that is, she says, the best and most valuable part of us as humans.

It put me in mind of the story of one of my oldest and dearest friends, L.

L was picked up by a dominant older man when she was just 17 and spent the following 30 years trapped inside an marriage which functioned at the extreme end of conservative Christian patriarchal fundamentalism. The psychological abuse to which she and later her children were subsequently subjected was pretty horrific.

Marrying before her adult personality was fully developed and being the victim of such extreme and prolonged abuse, L accepted her lot and struggled even to see that her children were being harmed by this man. She had fleeting moments when she could glimpse the truth and entertain the terrifying prospect of single-parenthood, but her husband, aware he was losing his grip at these times, would redouble his efforts and drag her back in. L's spirit had been so brutally crushed, I guessed it might be another 10 years before she found the strength to make her move.

And then, all of a sudden, she found it! First, it was little things like defying her husband in some small matter. But once she was on a roll there was no stopping her. This thing, this amazing, unbroken, powerful force that had perhaps been huddling somewhere deep inside L rose to its feet and announced it wasn't going to let that man abuse her or the kids any more. Ever.

I was awestruck as this former paragon of submission threw the ratbag out. I continued to be astounded as L found the courage to pack up the kids, move interstate, enroll in uni and begin a new life. This week L filed for divorce.

It seems plain that the longer you've been in, the harder it is to come out - and the tougher it is to find your way when you do. And as L had been dominated for the entirety of her adult life, she had few reference points to assist her in starting over. But she's doing it. And she's making a fabulous job of it too.

L's story is so inspiring I've invited her to write a guest post here. She's considering it. I suspect there are many, many women out there in similar situations. L and I would like to play a wee part in opening the door to the place where the Girl Cell is hiding. We would like to call to her - and encourage her to come out shouting.

Watch this space...